Professional explorer shares his passion for adventure with B.C. youth

Adam Shoalts grew up in Ontario with the forest as his playground.

His childhood home and school both were both surrounded by the forest and he spent a lot of time outdoors with his brother and dog. Shoalts said he remembers feeling drawn to the woods and wanting to go deeper and deeper into the forest. 

Today, he is a professional explorer and national best-selling author, known for his solo canoe trips in the Arctic, in which he has paddled up to 4,000 kilometres.

His canoe journeys began as soon as he graduated high school, using his homemade canoe.

Now a father, he takes his kids into the forest on the regular.

On Thursday Shoalts spoke to students at Vernon's outdoor education program, Awaken Inquiry and Adventure-Okanagan. He spoke with Chris Walker, host of CBC's Daybreak South about his 20 year career, and what he hopes to inspire in young minds.

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Canoeing from southern Ontario to the Arctic. Travelling solo across Canada's Arctic. Professional explorer and national best-selling author Adam Shoalts has done both, and more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

I'd love to hear just a few of your most memorable adventures.

My best known adventures, the ones that people know me for, are the long solo journeys. I did a 4,000 kilometre solo journey across the Arctic, from my doorstep in southern Ontario where I canoed to the Arctic, which wasn't quite as long, that was 3,400 kilometres.

I once found a mature American chestnut tree, and that might sound rather ho hum, like what's the big deal? But I always think of American chestnuts as the rarest of the rare. I know in British Columbia, you're blessed with many majestic trees, but American chestnuts are often described as the kings of the eastern forest. 

They were giants. If you saw a black and white photograph of an American chestnut from, say, the 1800s, you would swear it had to have been taken on Vancouver Island. That's how big these trees were.

The thing is, in 1909, there was an invasive blight that was accidentally introduced to North America. It was absolutely devastating to the American chestnut.

Once I was in the forest wandering along and then I saw a chestnut. What a lot of people probably don't realize is that the chestnuts you see in city parks and elsewhere across North America today are not native. They're introduced.

When I saw this one deep in an old growth forest in Ontario, I mean, it immediately gave me chills down the back of my spine because I recognized right away what I was looking at. 

I looked up and in front of me was this magnificent old chestnut tree. And I couldn't believe it. So I always say that is my greatest adventure, even though it's not one that maybe would come to mind for most people when you compare it to say, a four month journey alone across the Arctic.

How did you get into this? What was it early in your life that made you want to do these things?

I guess people are just products of their environment. I just happened to grow up with a forest around my house and we lived in the countryside. It was just forest all around my family home. So both my brother and my dog, that was just our playground where I always went as a five-year-old. 

I remember building what we called forts, like little stick shelters, like you are the donkey from Winnie the Pooh and sleeping in them when I was seven or eight with my brother in the woods around the house.

We had a forest around the school. So even in very young elementary grades, our teachers would take us in the woods and teach us. They would have us gather the leaves and then bring them back to the class.

I just kept wanting to go deeper and deeper into the forest. And, you know, as soon as I graduated high school, I started doing journeys with my homemade canoes. I would spend a month or two with my father building a canoe and then I would get out on my own and paddle it on any rivers or lakes I could get to.

You've been invited to do this talk by the Awaken Inquiry and Adventure-Okanagan school program. Can you tell us a bit about what you'll be talking about today?

I'm all about getting kids inspired to get outdoors, especially nowadays. 

It's hard not to be addicted to our phones in a world of social media and streaming videos. So, the school has asked me to share some of my own adventures in the wilderness and the great outdoors, canoeing and hiking and doing long journeys to hopefully spark something in the student audience.

Maybe if they hear a little bit about some of the journeys I've done, it could plant a seed where, who knows, in five to fifteen years, you might have one of them on CBC radio talking about the big long journey they did from their house in Vernon to Patagonia.

I mean, who knows? That's how it happened with me. I was inside my house. I looked out the window and I saw a peregrine falcon fly by and I thought, oh man, that falcon is a migratory bird headed to the Arctic. Why not just follow it? That's the kind of story I want to share with the audience tonight, that anything is possible.

Dream big dreams and get out there and explore. The natural world is endlessly fascinating and there's so much to see. So get out there and experience it, right?

Any tips for parents or teachers on how to get kids excited about being outside and learning about the natural world?

I'm a parent now with three little ones. My newest is only three weeks old. I'm taking them in the woods almost every day. I think it's just something about being a human, we gravitate toward the outdoors. I think it's in our makeup. But for many of us, it's dormant, right? It's there, you just have to reignite the spark. I think for many people, they don't get the opportunities to get outside.

So my goal is to make it a kind of adventure, right? Share with them some of the wildlife I've seen and some of the great adventures I've had. I think that that excites their interest and gets them outdoors.

Start small. I tried to teach my boys about birds. And it sounds, you know, rather ordinary. But the reality is when you go out walking, you're not likely to see some of the more exciting or larger animals on a day-to-day basis. 

But birds are interesting because you can pretty much see a bird every day of the week no matter where you live in Canada. When you're three years old or four years old, it's fun to teach them some of the basic birds, like that's a blue Jay or that's a cardinal. For an adult, sure, that sounds very simple. But for a kid to learn that stuff, you can see the spark in their eyes. They're excited. 

Trees too, are another one because again, you can find a tree no matter where you go. You'll be going to a city park, a playground with slides and swings, and learn a couple of the trees around there.

For the little kids it's like, wow. We can identify the difference between, say, a pine tree and a spruce tree. This is the kind of thing that I think opens the door for all sorts of adventures down the road for kids.